Initial Setup

Did I mention these sticks are impressive? I feel this rings especially true after installing them into a matching motherboard. As you can see in the pictures above, these modules really stand out and would make a great addition to any PC with a window on the side. Don't forget, I poked my finger pretty good while installing the DIMMs, so handle them with care!

As you can see by the DIMM's profile after installation, the TridentX name suits these DIMM's well as the red top fin is actually shaped like a trident, something that might not be immediately obvious. It wasn't until after a few weeks of testing motherboards with these sticks that I noticed it myself! With that fin in place, the full module measures in at 53.53mm in height, forcing me to remove the lower fan from the NH-C14 cooler I used in these pictures.

However, that fin is easily removed, of course. Just take out one screw, and slide the fin off to remove those clearance problems! With the fin removed, the modules measure in at 39.65 mm.

Removing the red fin dropped its height enough to install the lower fan of the Noctua cooler with some room to spare, as you can see by the pictures above. I would have no problem installing up to four of these sticks with the Noctua cooler installed.

If you have been following my motherboard reviews, you will know that I have been using these sticks since the launch of Intel Z77 Express board products, and that I have had some issues with these sticks at first. The problems I had getting these sticks to work were, naturally, not present with all motherboards. I, as such, informed G.SKILL that I had problems most likely related to BIOS issues that could be easily fixed by board makers. I have since re-visited those problematic boards with updated BIOSes that have been released since April and those problems no longer exist. In fact, every board I have tested in the past 12 weeks, including every Intel X79 Express board, has worked flawlessly with these sticks. Being a dual channel kit, these sticks are primarily intended for Z77 and do, of course, work really well with that platform. 2400 MHz was a big deal to me when I got these sticks, and 2400 MHz still is in the upper end of performance modules, but these sticks really make those ram speeds seem common place now.

Initial booting was no problem and I got the sticks working with their default XMP settings by simply using the XMP option in the BIOS. I have the CPU running at 4600 MHz for all testing because anyone purchasing XMP-rated memory is going to be overclocking. I have also included a screenshot from ASUS's MemTweakIt software, which shows many timings that aren't present in the CPU-Z screenshot, allowing you to see all the timings these tests were run with.